Keep Calm And Enjoy Sims 3. The Game Will Never Be Over, Because We're Keeping The Dream ALIVE!

On the Killakee Road in Dublin, across the road from the site of the original Killakee House, lies the current one – formerly known as The Steward’s House.

It was the site of Ireland’s chapter of the Hell Fire Club (the stories of which are – in typical Irish fashion – exaggerated beyond all credulity: gave a quick potted history of the Hell Fire Club in the review of The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina), a gun battle during Ireland’s two internal wars in the 20th century where to put it bluntly atrocities were the norm, and sundry other atrocious acts down the ages, so it is perhaps no surprise that it is reputed to be haunted.

The best known ghost, however, is that of a very pissed off black cat. When the property was turned into an Arts Centre in the late 60s and early 70s, it appeared, glowering and hissing, and the sight of this larger than normal malevolent feline was enough to cause superstitious builders and joiners to give themselves the sack on the spot. Those who remained were subjected to poltergeist activity which meant a high turnover of the workforce.

Considering Ireland’s economy at that time was up the spout long before the world recession had even started, this was pretty extraordinary. An exorcism only appeared to make matters worse.

There was speculation that the spectre was demonic in origin, but the truth is probably a little more simple, and cruel.

It used to be the case when large buildings were built in the British Isles, a cat would be slaughtered and put into the foundations, or even worse be sealed up alive within the stonework from the absurd belief its ghost would protect the property from evil spirits.

Ireland being more superstitious than the rest of these isles, this barbaric practice lasted well into the 19th century: making it more than likely this ‘lucky’ cat was either within the existing foundations built over, or was included within the stonework of the new building – being so close to where the Hell Fire Club used to hold its meetings may well have prompted the builders to commit this wicked act.

Whatever the case ‘Lucky’ did not take kindly to the renovations (perhaps too close to its final resting place), and the house went through a series of disastrous business ventures before finally revering back to becoming a private dwelling again not open to the public.

Whether ‘Lucky’ is still patrolling the corridors of Kilakee House to make sure no further meddling takes place is a matter only the current owners will know – and they certainly refuse to discuss it.

In their latest quest for relevance, the staff at The Guardian-Observer (its the same paper, no matter how much they pretend otherwise) have decided to do what the music press (remember them, grandparents?) tried to do and start telling ‘the kids’ what’s the next big trend in music.

Coming from a newspaper which treated the Quality Street tin Victoriana kitch of The Unthanks as cutting edge, it’s all too easy to be cynical.

That their cover star – Grace Petrie – is a feminist vegan lesbian socialist who sucked up the Guardian’s arses by writing a song about them and providing cliché copy whining about ‘white, Telegraph-reading folk-club regulars’ (in her narrow world you’re not allowed to like music if you’re not politically correct enough) shows that no matter how hard they try, the Guardian/Observer can no more escape their own ludicrous backward stereotype than The Sun, Daily Mail or any of those other rivals it despises – stuck in their own little timewarp of what constitutes an ideal world fifty years past the point the world has long since moved on.

‘Here are bands confronting the legacies of abortion rights; the oppression of women, homosexuals and other minority communities’ they gush, ‘the loss of minority language; the refugee crisis; and stories of people who have stood up to hate.’

You’d think Fairport Convention never happened: the band who almost single handedly resurrected British Isles folk, broadened its horizons and are partly to blame for the monster of modern music known as ‘the experimental side project’. Nor for that matter The Pogues (whose guitarist Phil Chevron was gay and who were notorious for their lyrics on politics and the darker side of life) and of course the most ‘woke’ of them all, The Men They Couldn’t Hang who spawned a multitude of copycats worldwide – the most famous of all being Floggin’ Molly.

Even a certain bunch of professional ‘wokesters’ – Chumbawamba – crashed into folk with a whole album of old folk protest songs, before doing some a lot newer with folk icons The Albion Band.

Folk has enjoyed peaks and troughs of popularity ever since Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchings gathered assorted collections of talented oddballs to their various standards over the decades. To the cry of ‘let a thousand initiatives bloom’, what was the quaint but dying music of yokels retained its relevance to audiences old and new by constant reinvention.

Even then, they were doing no more than the Beatles in their more thoughtful moments had also done when John Lennon made friends with Donovan – whose honey and walnut voiced protegy Vashti Bunyan was to make an album ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ copied by every folk musician if they were honest ever since.

Every time The Guardian-Observer opens their mouth about popular culture, they demonstrate their real interest is controlling it to fit their rigid vision of an ideal society, the wet dreams of Soviet style utopias comfortable middle class suburbanites are prone to in their sillier moments after one glass of cheap Waitrose wine too many.

PS. It gets funnier if you read the Comments section below the article. Their readers are even more stupid than they are.

Roger Daltrey becomes Johnny Rotten, and Jarvis Cocker is now the lead singer of Blur. Brilliant! Garath Treadwell ought to do the Guardian’s weekend supplements for them on a Saturday if they can only get him to find his inner wokeness.

Once upon a time in dear old Blighty, there was a music programme called ‘Top Of The Pops’.

Before MTV became popular, before the internet, back in the days when under a handful of TV channels and a few commercial radio stations were all there was for musicians to get mass attention, it was a very big deal to get on it – the difference between your record selling 1000 copies a week or 50000 copies a day.

When the eighties came along and people’s clothes began to look they’d poured a bucket of Skittles in with the washing, the appearence of bands mimicking old time punks Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Damned, Toyah, Bauhaus, The Cure and The Cult did make them stick out like sore thumbs just a bit, and Goth really didn’t do itself much favours by the first band ever to appear on TOTP with the new tagline – looking like extras from an episode of Doctor Who,

The Mission debuted on 19th March 1987 with the rather weak ‘Severina’ – the previous much stronger single ‘Wasteland’ was banned from airplay (due to the BBC and independent broadcasters showing a distinct lack of bottle when faced with loudmouthed militant born again Christian groups at the time stamping on anything ‘blasphemous’ or – even worse – hinting of paganism).

The band looked a bloody sight, Hussey couldn’t have been any more camp if he tried, and the public thought they were some hippy take on Boy George’s Culture Club (ironically, he was No.1 at the time with his first solo record after the latter fell apart due to their leader being a pathetic junkie). At least his purple went with the lights.

The cherry on top was Julianne Regan of All About Eve – The Mission’s ‘sister’ group – on backing vocals, complete with overbite and looking like she’d just crawled out of bed from some student dorm.

It did do the trick, however unintentionally, in killing stone dead the ‘goth threat’ sensationalism by tabloid journalists seeking the next circulation boosting morale crusade or those killjoys who see every ‘yoof’ movement as a threat to civilisation.

Which meant after this…

… no one bothered to complain about this (opening track of the 1st October 1987 show), until it was too late.

Eldritch and Morticia with the Sisterhood’s Chorus of Vengence – now Goth seemed like a good idea.

I am beyond angry about this (in tears), and it says a lot about YouTube this shit has been allowed to stay up beyond twenty four hours.

The third and final video for Steve Hackett’s forthcoming album ‘At The Edge Of Light’ came out yesterday, for the track ‘Beasts In Our Time.’

One minute and eleven seconds into the video, a man sees his daughter afraid of a tarantula. How does he deal with it? Show her it was harmless? Trap and remove it? No, he crushes the spider in his hand and throws it away like it was a piece of rubbish!

Coming from a musician who likes to flaunt planet friendly eco-credentials, this is beyond f**king belief!

I’m fond of spiders. I admit it took a while to be. I understand people are scared of them – used to be myself, until I watched one spin a web outside my classroom window one rainy afternoon many years ago, and felt guilty for ever having hated and feared something which could produce something of such delicate, exquisite beauty.

But you live and let live – and actively encouraging people to be cruel to spiders as ‘normal’ behaviour is as shitty as encouraging people to torment animals (or worse) on the internet for hits.

There’s a lot of people who keep tarantulas as pets – and that undoubtedly WAS a pet tarantuala, bred in captivity for the purpose, which was used in the video. How do you think they feel about people posting shit where tarantulas are made to fight with other spiders, or wasps, or other cruel shit, then some touchy-feely ‘artist’ does something like this!

A pet tarantuala, killed to make a poxy pop video for an artist whose last album I loved to bits. Thanks a bunch, you skeet!

The blurb accompanying this song says :‘the track ‘Beasts In Our Time’ is the main thrust of this album, exposing fear, greed and intolerance.’

All the video exposes is the immature fear and intolerance of spiders from morons whose knowledge of one of the most important parts of our eco-system appears to have been derived from far too many late night Hammer Horror movies.

In the British Isles since medievel times, we have a saying: ‘IF YOU WISH TO LIVE AND THRIVE, LET THE SPIDER RUN ALIVE!’ – in the days before pesticides, the spider was the best protector from disease carrying, food despoiling, crop ruining flies and beetles. Their webs were used to staunch wounds sustained in battle or from accidents (loaded with blood clotting Vitamin K, many of our ancestors owe their lives to some conveniently nearby spider’s web), and are still used in both medicine and optimetrics.

Lonely Island was created and owned by Rflong7/13, but was taken over by some undead Simmies for a bit of peace and quiet after involuntary resurrection from Ivy Hill Graveyard. It includes some others escaping from their own ‘life issues’, and is a sanctuary for the much maligned Butterfly of Doom and many other misunderstood species of Sims nature.

It’s been a long while, yet the residents of Rflong7/13’s Lonely Island are still there making the best of things, and the Jazz-Hands Gnubb Club (with its underground swimming pool, band space and other amusements) is still its central hub.

‘Hello, I am Elysia Knaith, Chargés d’Affaires ad nauseum and current First Speaker of the Lonely Island Wotchyamacaulit – the ruling council of the island and its dependencies – and I live by one of the many splendid beaches which Lonely Island has to offer the discerning tourist seeking quiet contemplation in idyllic surroundings.

‘Our community has gone through many trials and tribulations over the years, but here we remain, self sufficient and now an exporter of fine foodstuffs, music, arts and – um – other things perhaps best not brought up in polite conversation.

‘Here on Lonely Island we’ve shown that there’s a useful role to the wider Simmie society to be played by we – ahem! – involuntarily resurrected: what used to be referred to as livormorts, but we prefer the term Argyrians now as a little less morbid sounding.’

‘I still say it makes you sound like monsters from Doctor Who!’

‘Hush, Haily! Arrumph, as I was saying, We may be all from different background, shapes, sizes, opinions, um … lifestates … whatever – but together we have worked to build the harmonious community we are so proud of today.’

‘Undead freak? You’re calling me an undead freak?’

‘ – and we still all love to come together when the opportunity provides to knock a few Gnubb sticks around and chew the rag.’

‘Listen witless Whitsun Winterbottom, I’d rather be an undead freak than a brain dead dunghill with a ten gallon hat on a half pint head!’

‘And, um, occasionally lose the rag as well – which in Hazel Tyneham’s case is a rare event may I add. Usually it’s Rowan that dishes out the family’s insults.

‘But look! there’s young Shrove Winterbottom with Switch Cloverstardropper. Now they occasionally have their differences, but that’s never stopped them from remaining civil to one another.’

‘ – and I’m telling you for the last time, or else, stop calling me Pancake!’

‘Alright, I’ll call you F**KFACE instead!’

‘Um, yes, well, ahem, things can sometimes get a little, um, overheated – we are a passionate bunch out here as you would expect in a community of talented artisans over many important matters’ ***cough!*** [mutters] Gordon bleeding Bennett couldn’t they all have bloody behaved just for one day? ‘As you can see over there, Diggory Winterbottom and Grigor Gasterlich are discussing as ever important matters of international commerce and high finance.’

‘ – and quite aside from the television which left my wife traumatised, that crummy watch you sold me Ghastly keeps time worse than a drunken drummer the few times I’ve actually got it to work – and you said both had lifetime guarantees!’

‘My dear Diggory! This is most concerning! Have you saw a doctor? Consulted with a mainland hospital?’

‘A doctor? What’s a doctor got to do with this?’

‘Why, if I – Grigor Gasterlich, international entrepreneur and philanthropist – have sold you items with lifetime guarantees, and these misfortunes have occured, there can only be one rational explanation: you must be seriously ill!’

‘You see what’s happened to this place Elysia Knaith ever since you took charge? I came here with my family seven years ago to seek a more ecologically sustainable way of life, mindfulness and to find ourselves.

‘Instead, we found ourselves stuck on a plumbobbing pirates’ cove, surrounded by invading escaped zombie smurfs, escaped crooks, escaped sociopaths and escaped psychopaths – or those who are a combination of each!

‘What sort of low down, sleezy, corrupt cesspit has this place become?’

‘The FINEST in the whole Simming world – making us the Simmies we are today!’ ***wobbles bottom lip***

Haily ‘Skeletal Screams’ Farber tends to get all patriotic at times like this.

An escapee from Haunted Valley Sanitorium (she is the only Simmie whose psychosis resulted in an international treaty agreeing to her permanent incarceration as a danger to all carbon based lifeforms’ physical and mental health), she’s been holed up ironically in another of Rflong7/13’s lands ever since!

‘At least Diggory’s boho wife Felicity is able to get on with the undead islanders a little better.’

Willow’s in one of her cruel moods today – she’s letting Felicity have a head start and build up her hopes before embarking on her routine destruction of most who plays her. Again out of character – she’s the only one on the island almost as stark raving bonkers as Haily – but the Winterbottoms tend to bring out the worst in the Tynehams.

Diggory isn’t the only one complaining.

‘Why are we still staying here in this free range lunatic asylum!’

‘Because we’ve still got international warrants for our arrests issued by the Council of the United Nations of The Sims for revenue tax evasion in Sunset Valley, Riverview, Bridgeport, Starlight Shores, Lucky Palms, Hidden Springs, Roaring Heights, Sunlit Tides, Monte Vista, Shang Simla, Champs Les Sims and Al Simhara after that damn accountancy firms arrangements for the world tours for The Sarcastic Badgers, The Key Cutters, The Catwampus Imperative and Daisy Disaster were all found to be fraudulent. They’re all doing 10 000 years in jail – and that was on appeal!’

‘But the only reason for coming here to this glorified nature reserve was in getting ourselves elected onto the island’s running council and put in charge we’d acquire diplomatic immunity – now we’ve voted off there’s nothing to stop them coming here after us.’

‘Only if Elysia lets them come on – and she’s not gonna do that! She’s given me her word.’

‘And you trust her?’

‘Um – you really didn’t need to be hearing any of that. They were just – ahahaha! – rehearsing their lines for a new play – yes, that’s it! – our local thespian Smedley Bracegirdle is organising – Casting Spreadsheets On The Waves or something like that.’

‘Nice try, Pinocchio. Ruff-ruff! I’m a little woof-woof and I like doggy…’

‘YES THANK YOU HAILY! Innit marvellous! You try to do a plug for your homeland – only for this lot to make a buttplug out of it!’

‘At least unlike this tip you can get some fun from a buttplug!’

‘Witty darling, language please!’

‘I’ll ram my toe up your arse at high speed never mind a buttplug if I get any more of your lip Witless, you saucy little git! Look, this lot have their disagreements, but look what’s happening now with Diggory and Uncle Ghastly, er I mean Grigor Gasterlich.’

‘He’s telling about his new investments market portfolio. It’s a top down bottom up multi layered inter-dimensional hedge and shubbery fund, and Diggory’s falling for it, um, I mean considering making an educated investment in it.’

‘Look at young Shrove and Switch – a few moments ago they were almost at each other’s throats.’

‘But now they’re discussing in earnest the new limited edition My Little Ponies Of The Apocalypse coming out in the spring.’

‘Indeed, Elysia is correct – apologies for this apropos interdiction. Rowan Tyneham, at your service! My sisters and I may have the occasional intemperate contemporary contretemps with one’s neighbours, but one never forgets one’s neighbours are always one’s friends.’

‘Even Whitsun Winterbottom, who one concurs can be – if you pardon the venacular – a f**king oxygen thief needing his face shoved in a food blender.’

‘Um ***cough!*** thank you for that Rowan – I think! Lonely Island may be at times a loony bin – but it’s our little loony bin, and I wouldn’t swap it for the world!’